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10 WAYS IN WHICH MARKET RESEARCH CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS GROW

Last Friday I attended what was billed as a ‘High Growth Summit’. The conference room was bursting with budding entrepreneurs, and consultants of every hue keen to advise them. Tom Joule the founder of Joules – the country clothing brand – was the keynote speaker. Very early in his talk he said something that made me sit up and take notice – “We now do in just three hours, the sales turnover that we achieved in our first year of trading.”

That’s phenomenal growth I thought, admittedly achieved over around 20 years. He went on to elaborate part of his business philosophy – “You’ve got to put the customer at the centre of everything. Make it easy all the way.” It got me thinking about the range of ways in which market research can support and help sustain rapid growth for client brands and businesses. From those musings I have pulled together below, a summary of 10 ways in which market research can help grow your business:-

1] Successfully creating new products or services

Let’s start with perhaps the most obvious R&D. If your product portfolio is not as fresh and vibrant as it might be there is a strong likelihood that your business is slowing rather than growing. Successfully introducing a new product can give you new things to talk to customers about and potentially new types of customers to boot (A Joules wellie boot of course!). New research methods that support collaboration and co-creation with customers are transforming NPD. Enabling the gathering of reactions and insights online or offline in real time.

2] Targeting new customer segments

This has the potential to unlock new revenue streams. It’s likely that if the new potential customers fall outside your traditional heartland, that you know a lot less about them: their attitudes, purchase behaviours and motivations. Market research can help here. Techniques like Profiling, Persona Creation or Need State Analysis, could all usefully add to your understanding of the new customers – What they know or don’t know about your brand? Where they see value in your product? Learning fast about new segments will help you to grow faster.

3] Entering new markets

If you have a really strong brand and clear international opportunities, entering new markets can accelerate your revenues. Tom Joule had found that their New British-eccentric style had surprisingly resonated in Germany! Even if your ambitions do not stretch across the sea, opening up a new region or extending the brand into a new category or market sector can deliver strong growth.

4] Securing investment and finance

Taking your business to the next level is very likely to involve finding new funding. Independent market research conducted by a credible MRS Company Partner agency can help you make a stronger, more evidence-based case to investors, business angels, VCs, banks, even your own board, to get them on side from the outset.

5] Building your brand

Creating, building and maintaining a strong brand is the firm foundation for most business growth strategies. How your product or service is perceived by customers and prospects will largely determine its’ future success. Brand Health research can deliver a much clearer understanding of who is aware of your brand and who isn’t, what kind of image or personality it has and how prepared people are to consider buying from you. Armed with this knowledge you can identify how to successfully extend the reach of your brand.

6] Enhancing customer and staff retention

Your business or brand is only likely to be growing rapidly if you are successful in retaining the customers that you already have. Regularly running Customer Satisfaction research can pinpoint areas to work on and improve, whilst also highlighting who is evangelising about the brand. Employee Engagement research can perform a similar role with an even more precious company asset – your people. Providing an opportunity for key employees to open up about their frustrations or aspirations can be the difference between keeping them driving the business forward and heading off for pastures new.

7] Making the right acquisition decisions

Well-judged acquisitions can dramatically accelerate business growth. But ‘Caveat emptor’ or ‘Let the buyer beware’ certainly applies when it comes to business acquisitions. Due Diligence processes can often fail to really interrogate the health and strength of the customer or client relationships that the selling business has. Independent Customer Satisfaction research or a full-scale Client Relationship Review can do much to establish the true future health of the business, reduce reliance upon directors’ warranties and limit the chances of over-paying.

8] Getting the price right

Whilst we’re on the subject of paying for things. Market research has many different tools in its armoury to assist businesses in optimising the price they sell goods and services for. This can be particularly useful when introducing new products but also when relaunching or reformulating existing ones.

9]Communicating effectively

You can have great products or offer an excellent service but if you fail to communicate and promote them in a compelling, persuasive and engaging way growth will not be strong. Creative Development research and Concept Pre-Testing can be of considerable assistance in originating communications that powerfully and memorably get your message across to the right people in the right way.

10] Reacting quickly to events

Tom Joule had a concluding message for tomorrow’s ‘high growers’ and it was “You’ve got to keep on top of the speed of retail. Those not on the pace have lost out.” Creating and managing a Customer Panel – people who have pre-agreed to participate in market research a few times each year – can pay dividends by enabling you to run research fast and respond rapidly to events.

We may not all have the ambition, tenacity and luck demonstrated by the energetic Mr. Joule but we can all make better informed business decisions by harnessing market research.

"Habit5 provided some very valuable insights, that formed the basis for us relaunching the product propositions into the market. We found Habit5 to be highly professional throughout the project. They worked very diligently to meet the challenging timing and budget parameters of the project."Ash Kirkpatrick, Head of Brand, Woodland Trust

"Habit5 were a pleasure to work with. They fully understood what we needed to achieve from the research and delivered strongly against these requirements...I can confidently recommend working with Habit5 and would happily do so again."Sam Turner, Community Engagement Manager, Lincolnshire Co-op

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"I have experience of working with Habit5 in a couple of different client companies and can confidently recommend them as a professional partner for strategically important research."David Meadows, Brand Consultant, BioCare

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